FROM DUST TO DUST - "Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?"
Let's face it. One day we're all going to die! And when that day comes, what we believe regarding heaven and hell will be irrelevant because reality will have replaced theory and our fate of impending judgment will commence. Where we go when we die is a topic of great interest to most people. Many religions speak of afterlife with varying degrees of requirements associated with them, while other schools of thought debunk the idea of immortality altogether. The most important thing we must consider is what the Bible clearly states, so that we would not be misguided or misinformed regarding what we believe as Christians. Within this passage of Ecclesiastes, Solomon paints an interesting correlation between man and beast, declaring that both share the same fate. All will return to the dust from which they were formed due to their mortality. But as Christians, we believe our soul differentiates us from all creation and offers the opportunity to cross over from mortality to immortality if we choose to accept the terms and conditions ordained by God for our salvation. It is not a complicated equation. Jesus simply proclaims, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Therefore, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved" (Romans 10:9-10).
Those who confess their sins and accept Christ as Lord and Savior are assured salvation when they die. Those who reject Christ are judged for their pride and unbelief, and cast into eternal hell. Unfortunately, the Bible does not offer a grey option, only black and white. Works cannot save us, other religions do not provide equal and alternative routes to heaven, and fantastical theories such as reincarnation and purgatory do not offer second chances or intermediary states of cleansing or purification before entering heaven. The Bible is clear: ONE WAY, ONE TRUTH, ONE LIFE. This side of heaven, we have the choice to accept or reject God's plan of salvation for mankind. The spiritual fork in the road requires a decision and indifference is not an option. Therefore, we are without excuse according to what the Bible teaches. For Solomon, the reality of where the soul resides when we die was perplexing. Keep in mind, Jesus had not come to earth yet to fulfill his purpose of salvation, so Solomon would have understandably been confused. We know though that by accepting Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross of Calvary as payment for the penalty our sins demand at judgment, we are assured salvation. Again, many people struggle with the idea that we can just "pray a prayer" to be saved. Wouldn't that undermine salvation together? Because logically, we could just continue living how we want without any regard for what the Lord says in His Word, for our eternal salvation is sealed regardless of what sins we commit thereafter if we believe once saved, always saved. But Jesus warns us emphatically, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’" (Matthew 7:21-23). As we learned in our devotional study of James 2:14-26, works do not save us in any way but they do bear witness that heart change has taken place in us by our obedience and submission to the Word of God.
The undertone Solomon speaks with in this passage of Ecclesiastes is rather morbid. In essence he is stating, "We all die, so what's the point?" Moreover, he is identifying that living in a fallen world inevitably results in times of injustice and wickedness. We look around and grieve over the depravity we see in the heart of man that would compel some of the most heinous acts of sin imaginable to occur in our communities. But Solomon is also shifting our perspective from the glaring sins we see around us to an introspective evaluation of the subtle sins that reside in the dark corners of our own hearts. In other words, do we recognize "respectable sins" in our hearts which we have chosen to NOT destroy? (NOTE: Consider reading "Respectable Sins," by Jerry Bridges for further insight into the sins we tolerate.) Do we realize the impact they have on our eternal destination? Do we see how God is continually testing us in order to shift our attention on Him and His free gift of salvation rather than watch us perish with no remorse? Please do not mistake His intent! "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Moreover, if we have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, we can fully anticipate that the Lord will discipline us so that we will remain on the straight and narrow path that sanctifies our hearts. "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" (Hebrews 12:6-8).
Our response as born-again Christians to the vanity Solomon expresses is through the assurance of salvation Jesus offers. Scripture is crystal clear: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Our works do not save us in any way. We cannot earn our salvation or work our way to heaven, hoping that on judgment day our good outweighs the bad on the scales of righteousness. If we believe that in any way, we need to repent of our foolish thinking and embrace the reality that SALVATION IS A FREE GIFT! The minute we think our works play a role in whether we get to heaven when we die, we diminish the eternal sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf to pay the death penalty for our salvation. Works only testify to the inward change in our hearts from loving self to serving God in thankfulness for His free gift. Make no mistake, Jesus had to die. The wrath of God demanded it through His Law. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). That is why focusing solely on God's love is so dangerous. God's love is exemplified through the wrath of His justice intended for mankind which He chose to pour out on His own Son. His love is immeasurable and so too is His wrath, for His law which declares He is just is the equal and opposite aspect of His holy character and identity. The question we must wrestle with is whether we have bought into the ideology that being a good person, or attending church every Sunday, or simply hoping our good outweighs our bad on the day of judgment has become our personal theology. For if it has, we can be assured the Lord will righteously declare, "Depart from me, I never knew you." We simply cannot bank our eternal immortality on wishful thinking and blind hope. The absolute truth of Scripture is freely available to guide our eternal fate decision if we choose to embrace it as our moral compass. Therefore, we must repent and accept fully what the Word of God teaches: That we are saved by grace through faith and not by works, so that we cannot in any way, shape or form take credit for our salvation. It is only by the blood of Jesus that we have the opportunity to choose heaven or hell...but we must make a choice or suffer the consequences.
Why then is this message so important? "If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts" (Psalm 7:12-13). Consider this perspective: "So, then, God has a sword, and He will punish man on account of his sins. This evil generation has labored to take away from God the sword of His justice; they have endeavored to prove to themselves that God will "clear the guilty," and will by no means "punish evil, disobedience, and sin."...But the cry of the age is, that God is merciful, that God is love. Yes, who said He wasn't? But remember it is equally true, God is just, severely and inflexibly just! He would not be God, if He were not just; He could not be merciful if He were not just, for punishment of the wicked is demanded by the highest mercy to the rest of mankind." The great Charles Spurgeon spoke those words to his church congregation on December 7, 1856, yet his words could not be more appropriate to our present day as well, 160 years later. The reality that to dust we will return one day must compel us to reconcile once and for all what we believe about eternity. Do we know this moment if it be our last that without question we will spend eternity in heaven? If the answer is yes, we must be sure our theology is based solely on the 66 books of the Bible (Note: The Catholic Apocrypha is not accepted as part of the 66 books), and that we are not mixing works into the "grace by faith alone" equation, otherwise we are misinformed and will suffer the same fate as unbelievers who reject the Gospel altogether. If the answer is "No" that we are not sure, we must reconcile our hearts to God immediately (for we are not guaranteed tomorrow) and make a personal choice to accept the free gift of salvation Christ offers as taught throughout His Word, or suffer the consequences and risk spending eternity in hell cut off from heaven. As James MacDonald often states, "Choose to sin, choose to suffer," and we must take this warning as seriously as death itself if we are to grasp what this Easter week is all about. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (Romans 5:6-11).
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